Last April, I took up running again after an absence of over 15 years. Turns out I’m not nearly as fast as I used to be. Still, a month ago I decided to run a half marathon to raise money for rescue animals and learned exactly why people wear those dorky looking belts with water bottles on them–when you go past an hour, you need to bring your own fuel or you may or may not puke on the side of the road in front of your friend’s house. The belts look stupid, but carrying a water bottle is a hassle (I spent the entire 8 mile run switching hands and wondering if I could throw the bottle on someone’s lawn). So I went to Google and stumbled upon Simple Hydration, a hands-free bottle that, lo and behold, was born on Kickstarter.
I’m always looking for new angles to take for “Crowdfunding 201″, so I tracked down project creator Brian Hock, to see if we could learn something about the transition from Kickstarter campaign to real, live item you can buy.
Interview, with commentary, after the jump:
McNelly: How long did it take you to come up with the idea and what was the process of deciding to go with Kickstarter?
Hock: The idea for the Simple Hydration Water Bottle struck me on a brutally hot July run as I was preparing for the Louisville Ironman Triathlon. I was trying to simulate the hot conditions of that race and the late mid-day start of the marathon. I was running a 5-mile loop around a local airport and needed some water in between my car stops for fuel and hydration. I hate to carry bottles or wear a bulky hydration belt so I would stick an Aquafina Water Bottle (with some air pressed out of it) into the back of my shorts. It would kind of stay in place but would ultimately slip down due to the sweat and movement. So I thought: “What if there was a hook to keep it on the waistband?”